Staff Directory

Frank Almond

Artist-in-Residence

Violinist Frank Almond holds the Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO). Now celebrating his twenty-first season with the MSO, he has also held positions as Concertmaster of the Rotterdam Philharmonic with Valery Gergiev, and Guest Concertmaster of the London Philharmonic with Kurt Masur. Other Guest Concertmaster appearances have included the Seattle Symphony, the Montreal Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Grand Tetons Music Festival, and the San Diego Symphony. He continues an active schedule of solo and chamber music performances in the U.S. and abroad including appearances with the Ojai Festival, Frankly Music, An die Musik, the Nara Academy in Nara, Japan, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Music in the Vineyards, and various solo appearances with orchestras. He has been a member of the chamber group An die Musik in New York City since 1997, and also founded and directs the much-loved and somewhat notorious Frankly Music Chamber Series based in Milwaukee. At 17, he was one of the youngest prizewinners in the history of the Nicolo Paganini Competition in Genoa, Italy, and five years later was one of two American prizewinners at the Eighth International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, which was documented in an award-winning PBS film. Since then he has kept up an eclectic mix of activities in addition to his concertmaster duties, appearing both as a soloist and chamber musician.

He has recorded for Summit, Albany, Boolean (his own label), Innova, Newport Classic, Wergo and New Albion and has appeared numerous times on NPR’s Performance Today. In both 2002 and 2004, An die Musik received Grammy nominations for its “Timeless Tales” series. The re-release of Mr. Almond’s recording of the complete Brahms Sonatas, performed in collaboration with pianist William Wolfram, brought extraordinary critical acclaim, and was also listed in the American Record Guide top recordings of 2001.

With pianist William Wolfram, a CD of sonatas by Respighi, Janáček, and Strauss was released on the AVIE label to much acclaim and was named a “Best of 2007″ by the American Record Guide. A CD of American violin and piano music was released on Innova Recordings with pianist Brian Zeger and has also garnered much press enthusiasm. A recording of selected works of Samuel Barber was released in 2010, in cooperation with the Hal Leonard Corporation. In April 2013 AVIE released A Violin’s Life featuring works and composers directly associated with the “Lipinski” Stradivarius, charting in the Billboard Top 10 in its first week of release. A Violin’s Life, Vol. 2 was released in May 2016, also charting at the top of Billboard.

Mr. Almond holds two degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Dorothy DeLay. Other important teachers included Michael Tseitlin, Felix Galimir, and Joseph Silverstein. He has held academic positions at San Diego State University, Texas Christian University, and Northwestern University, and in 2014 joined the faculty of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Also in 2014, he was appointed to a newly created Artist-in-Residence position at the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra.

He usually plays on a violin by Antonio Stradivari from 1715, the “ex-Lipiński.” In December 2011, he appeared in concerts and masterclasses in Poland to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Karol Lipinski performing on his former violin. On January 27, 2014, the “ex-Lipiński” Stradivari was stolen from Mr. Almond in an armed robbery after a Frankly Music concert. The violin was recovered nine days later, and the story continues to make headlines around the world. Mr. Almond is extremely grateful to the Milwaukee Police Department, the FBI, and the thousands of individuals who sent messages of concern and support.

Mr. Almond writes an online column, nondivisi, which may be found, along with more information about Frankly Music, A Violin’s Life and the Lipiński Stradivari, at frankalmond.com.